


cast your sleeping heart awake

by bygoneboy



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood and Injury, Dismemberment, Emperor Hux, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, Hux is Not Nice, It's A Very Particular AU, M/M, Trauma, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-11 03:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7026334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bygoneboy/pseuds/bygoneboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Is this a— a marriage proposal?”</i>
</p><p>  <i>“We’d do well together,” appeals Organa, insolent and impossible. “You know I think you’re beautiful.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nonwal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonwal/gifts).



> for [nonwal](http://nonwal.tumblr.com). i really hope my thief!ben is to your liking!!

The first time Alderaan’s Thief asks Hux to marry him, the right side of his face is stained with blood, and his hands are bound together in manacles and chains.

 

They are in the throne room. Hux wears his finest. His silver crown rests nestled in his hair; he is white-robed, gold-studded clasps glinting up to his throat. He adjusts the embroidered edge of his sleeve, gaze kept carefully askance, and coolly lists off the things that he has been thinking about doing.

 

“I could drown you,” he says. His voice echoes nicely in the smooth, marble-pillared chamber. “Or tie you to three of my fastest horses, and drag you through the market square until every ounce of your flesh was torn from your body. I could order you to be placed in a chest only just large enough to hold you. There would be no light. No sound, no escape. You would die alone, Organa, choking on your own breath.”

 

“Gods,” says the Thief, without waiting for permission to speak. “How fascinating, you’re so clever.”

 

He’s teasing. Again. When Hux glances down from the throne it’s to find him sitting back on his heels, hands clasped politely together, head tipped to the side. His eyes are bright against the gray prison grime imbedded in his skin, and his wide mouth is amused, infuriatingly. He does not look afraid, the way he should. He looks—

 

Fond. Enamored. Like Hux is some sweet thing in a tavern alley, and Organa would like nothing more than to take him home.

 

“I considered a public beheading,” Hux says, through gritted teeth. “But I’ve decided against it.”

 

“Oh, that’s a shame,” says the Thief. “Might I ask on what terms you’ve denied me the privilege of decapitation?”

 

“I require your punishment to last much longer than the swing of an executioner’s blade.”

 

The bastard has the nerve to smile. “I don't think you can bear to part with me.”

 

“I intend,” Hux hisses, gripping at the armrests of the throne and leaning forward, icy eyes fixed on his prisoner’s, “to make you suffer, Organa.”

 

“As long as you’re the one holding the riding crop,” comes the immediate reply, grin easy and wide, “I’m certain I’ll enjoy it very much.”

 

Hux’s patience snaps. “Phasma,” he orders; his voice strains, too high, and he clears his throat to bring it down. “Captain. Take him.”

 

She moves forward at once, yanking Organa up by his hair. He winces, his smile faltering as she begins to drag him away, but to Hux’s immense chagrin it reappears almost at once, and twice as dazzling. “When will I see you again?” he asks, twisting his head to call out toward the throne from over his shoulder. “Soon, I hope.”

 

“You _hope,”_ Hux repeats, snorting indelicately. “With that in mind, perhaps I’ll make you wait.”

 

“Oh, don’t, please. I’m not sure if I'm capable of going more than a week without at least a glimpse of you.”

 

Phasma has him nearly to the double doors. Hux has never so regretted the expansive length of the throne room before. “Whatever you are or are not capable of, I would consider any interlude from your incessant yammering to be a blessing.”

 

“Not if you knew what I’m prepared to offer you.”

 

“There’s nothing you have that I want.”

 

“Not even the allegiance of another kingdom?”

 

“What?” says Hux, surprised. The word slips out loud, and unintentionally; he barely refrains from clapping his hand over his mouth, humiliated at the mistake. “Phasma,” he demands, all the same, surging to his feet. “Stop.”

 

The Captain slows to a halt at his word, dropping Organa like a sack of flour. The Thief squirms over onto his belly, pushing himself somewhat awkwardly to his feet as Hux sweeps toward him. “Have I got your attention?”

 

“For the moment.” Hux stares at him hard-eyed, daring him to waste his time. “What is this about?”

 

Organa wets his lips. His throat bobs as he swallows and abruptly, under his matted hair and beneath the crusted blood over his temple, he looks years younger, smoothed into something almost innocent, hesitant. “You’re aware of my parentage,” he says.

 

“Unfortunately,” Hux agrees, lip curling.

 

“You’re aware of—” His voice is softer, now, and gentle, as if he’s soothing the wild nerves of an unbroken stallion. “Of what that makes me.”

 

“If you think that the circumstance of your royal blood will persuade me to—”

 

“Hux,” says Organa, abandoning respect in every sense. “What if— have you ever considered what we could do? The two of us, uniting Alderaan and Arkanis, together?”

 

Hux stares, his mouth going slack, and forgets his voice.

 

“Are you _propositioning_ me?” he demands, when he finds it again.

 

“I’m negotiating. Which could be seen as a form of proposition, I suppose—”

 

“Is this a— a _marriage_ proposal?”

 

“We’d do well together,” appeals Organa, insolent and impossible. “You know I think you’re beautiful.”

 

Hux gapes at him for a moment longer.

 

Then his blood is roaring in his ears, and the back of his hand is swinging, open-palmed and savage, to strike across Organa’s face.

 

“As if I would ever have you,” he snarls, as Organa staggers, his already-bloodied head snapping back, dark hair tumbling over his eyes. “You must be joking.”

 

Organa turns his eyes up toward him again. Even flushed and beat back his soft, lopsided face has an earnest sincerity that Hux cannot place, and a ridiculous, stupid hope that Hux does not understand. “Tell me you’ll consider it.”

 

“I can assure you,” Hux replies, as Phasma moves to take hold of him again, as the double doors groan open to bear him away, “that I will not.”

 

 

…

 

 

He had met Organa when he was twenty-three, at a masquerade in the rainy, thick-misted borders of Bespin’s capital city. They had danced, twice, amidst pleasant conversation; Hux had thought him fetching and amiable, if a bit odd.

 

It was hours later when he finally realized that in the brief duration of their tête-à-tête, Organa had plucked the crown from his head, and had paraded it, shamelessly, around the reception— all while Hux had continued to dance, bareheaded and ignorant.

 

 _All in good fun,_ the Thief had insisted, handing the crown back with a lazy smile, and Hux had smiled too, thin-lipped and tight-eyed, and pretended to forgive the humiliation of the evening.

 

Their relationship had persisted along those same lines for years. Alderaan and Arkanis had never gotten along and neither, Hux had been resolutely determined, would they. Another royal ball would bring them together and Organa would flirt and tease and steal— meaningless things. One of Hux’s gloves. The champagne glass from Hux’s hand. Hux always noticed too late, with Organa’s smile stuck stupidly in his head.

 

The Thief would find him at the end of the night, along with whatever it was he had snatched. He would press a soft-mouthed, apologetic kiss to the white-knuckled fist of Hux’s hand. And Hux would bear it. And hate him.

 

It was tolerable.

 

But then Organa, of course, had taken it too far.

 

And now his talk of _marriage—_

 

He’d actually thought that—

 

And he’d had the _audacity_ to—

 

In the safety of his rooms and the company of his attendants, Hux barks out a laugh, entirely without humor.

 

“A difficult session?” one of the attendants asks, sympathetic. Mitaka, Hux thinks, distantly, as he unclasps his heavy robe. He’s the sweet-tempered second son of a baron— some useless politician that Hux had owed a trivial favor— as well as the most talkative of his servants. Phasma has suggested that it’s only because the rest are too terrified to speak to him.

 

Hux rather prefers it that way.

 

“It was no more difficult than the last three,” he replies, turning to allow Mitaka to lift the vestment from his shoulders, a blessed relief. He rolls one shoulder and feels the muscles in his back unfurl without the heavy weight of the damn thing. “The prisoner hasn’t yet learned his place.”

 

Mitaka clicks his tongue. “Foreigners,” he says, as if someone of his position and rank would understand. Hux graces him with a false smile.

 

But he does hold something of a point. Hux finds inexcusable absurdities in most of the countries that border his own, and Organa’s homeland is no exception: Alderaan’s lawbook is insultingly lenient. Their Queen relies on the loyalty of her citizens, instead of the order of her Guard. She puts more faith in her gods than in her own influence. She may be older but she is no wiser for it— a foolish ruler, Hux thinks, and a foolish mother, too, if she thought she could subdue Hux’s reign with the smiles and charms of her eldest son.

 

Sending him to Arkanis was a mistake. Hux is determined to ensure that it will be one she will learn from.

 

He still hasn’t discovered the true reason why the Alderaan prince is here. Organa continues to deny that any of Alderaan's royal family were involved, but Hux is certain that his intentions were malicious— or, in any case, that they were founded on the basis of trickery. He would expect nothing less from a Thief.

 

It’s a bizarre custom, Thieves; there is nothing like it in the traditions of the Arkanis aristocracy. Most of Arkanis considers the position of a royal Thief to be a foolish Alderaan novelty.

 

Hux knows better.

 

It is, as most royal titles are, a hereditary rank, although Hux is sure there’s more to it than that. The inheritor of the title must have certain talents: quickness of foot, the ability to silence their own steps, to mask themselves in shadow. Some of the intelligence Hux has uncovered suggests that they can read minds, which he finds rather ludicrous, but whether the rumored telepathy is fact or fiction— Alderaan’s Thieves have never been a force to be underestimated. After all, it was a Thief’s hand that undid the ancient Empire.

 

The Empire that Hux has worked all his life to rebuild.

 

Perhaps that’s it, Hux thinks, absently, maybe Organa’s assignment was assassination. There are plenty of reasons for Alderaan to want him dead. In their peace-hazed eyes, he is unstable. Radical. Dangerous, he admits, yes, because he is proud to be feared. But Arkanis is the furthest from chaos that any sovereign nation will ever be. Hux has seen to that.

 

He was not his father’s eldest son. He was not even second in line to inherit. As the youngest of three brothers, Hux grew up painfully aware of his insignificance. He knew he would most likely end up tending a god’s altar, choking on incense and wetting his hands in lamb’s blood until the day he died. He had accepted, from a very tender age, that he was not going to be king.

 

Then a cough had wracked the lungs of his first brother, and he had spit up blood for a week before going cold. And his second brother, hasty and loudmouthed and reckless, had made too many enemies to last more than two months.

 

Hux was fifteen when he was woken by his nursemaid in the middle of the night, pushed into the throne room, and handed supreme sovereignty.

 

He has held on as tightly as he possibly can, ever since.

 

The idea of being forced to share that power—

 

No, he does not wish for a stranger to claim half his title. Half his country’s respect. Half of his life’s work, his heart, and soul. It revolts him, the picture of another sovereign power declaring themselves his equal, taking to his bed. He will marry only to bear a child to carry his name, and that is a necessity that will not emerge for at least another ten years.

 

A proposal from Organa—

 

From a _Thief,_  no less—

 

He scowls, deeply, in the privacy of his chambers.

 

He would not chain himself to Organa if his life depended on it.

 

 

…

 

 

The next few days pass without incident.

 

He busies himself with his political affairs. His barons are becoming restless, as they are often apt to do, when he is preoccupied; uneasy without the security of an heir, they’ve demanded that he name one of them successor, in the off-chance that he meets an untimely demise without anyone of his blood to carry on after him. Hux baits them with a _perhaps,_ a _gods willing._ In all honesty he will not even consider it, but their cooperation is necessary, and the possibility of inheritance is enough to keep them in line. To keep them on a leash, to hold onto what he has.

 

In the meantime, he will let Organa rot in his cell, out of sight, and out of mind.

 

Out of sight, at least.

 

A second series of punishments has occurred to him. None fit well enough to match Organa’s crime, none of them _satisfy_ him. Each end, too quickly, in death.

 

Not that he cares if Organa perishes or not, in the punishment he’ll be dealt. No, he wouldn’t— it’s of no importance, to him.

 

It’s a matter of foreign affairs.

 

He knows he is playing a dangerous game. Organa is popular in the eyes and hearts of his people. Alderaan’s Queen is fond of her son. Hux cannot do as he pleases with the prince, not without consequence.

 

In his lesser moments, he’s found that his hatred for Organa outweighs his concern. As long as this play of power ensures that the Thief will never set foot in his palace again— it will be well worth it.

 

“But I need him alive,” he says aloud, to the echoing cavern of his throne room. “I need him alive.”

 

Phasma, facing forward at the side of his throne, pretends, very wisely, not to hear.

 

 

…

 

 

On the fifth day of his contemplation, two weeks after he’d first captured Organa, everything unravels.

 

It begins with a letter, brought before him on a silver platter.

 

The envelope bears Alderaan’s seal. “Leia Organa sends her regards,” drawls the messenger— Dameron, one of the Queen’s trusted officers. When he bows it is low enough that Hux recognizes it as mockery— _her regards and her displeasure, I’m sure._ Hux breaks the seal without hesitation, and draws out the letter.

 

 _To My Dearest and Esteemed Emperor_ , and her introduction from there on is as ornate and strategic as he’d expected. Alderaan does not thrive off of peace treaties and negotiation based on luck alone. Leia Organa is a skilled player of the bureaucratic game; Hux had known this when he’d chosen to lock her son in his dungeons.

 

“Your Thief was discovered trespassing from inside my palace walls,” says Hux, flatly, refolding the letter methodically as Dameron watches with a wary eye. “He was caught with weapons and my own personal items hidden within the seams of his clothes—”

 

“Your— personal items?” Dameron repeats, his brow creasing. “What did he take?”

 

“Common law authorizes me to hold him here,” Hux says, ignoring the question.

 

“With all due respect, _gracious_ Emperor,” Dameron says, in a tone of voice that implies that any respect he’d ever held for Hux has been long since buried six feet under, “Benjamin Organa is not a common criminal."

 

“And yet I am not breaking the rules of any treaty.”

 

“Organa will grant the ransom you desire—”

 

“She cannot buy him from me.”

 

“Please,” says Dameron, frustration cracking through the derision of his expression. “Do you understand what you’re risking, by holding him here?”

 

Hux looks at him, impassive.

 

Then he raises a hand.

 

Phasma steps forward, bowed before him, and he gives her his orders without taking his eyes from Dameron’s: “Have the prisoner brought up.”

 

“Brought here?” Phasma asks, slightly taken aback.

 

“Immediately, if you please.” In front of him Dameron’s face sags in relief. Phasma inclines her head, pressing her hand to her heart in the Arkanis fashion, then moves swiftly from his side.

 

“Thank you,” says Dameron, exhaling. “My lord, I can assure you—”

 

“Oh, and Captain,” calls Hux, as if it has just occurred to him. “Fetch me the surgeon, as well.”

 

“The surgeon,” Phasma repeats, an eyebrow quirking, a question only she is permitted to ask—

 

_You want to do this?_

Hux thinks of Organa’s smile, wide and sweet, of Organa’s long fingers, plucking the crown from his oblivious head. He thinks of the time he had found select bottles of fragrance missing— and then breathed in his own perfumes on Organa’s skin, at a chanced masquerade. He thinks of the letters behind left on his desk, obscene and intimate and signed with the letter _B,_ of his fury, when his bewildered guards denied having seen anyone enter or exit his rooms.

 

He thinks of undressing. Of standing in the moonlight of the open window and letting his tunic and trousers drop to the floor, of words, pulling at his chest, _are you there, are you watching,_ and feeling the prickle of dark, hidden eyes on his skin.

 

“Yes,” he says, and his blood boils hot.

 

 

…

 

 

The Thief seems to understand, when he sees the stricken, panicked look on Dameron’s face, that anything he had been planning to say would be unwise in the face of the situation. Consequently, he is blessedly quiet, as he is brought in.

 

Then he sees the surgeon. And the bucket, and the hot towels, and the knife.

                                     

He tries to run.

 

The guards have pinned him down before he gets two steps; they drag him toward the readied altar and he gasps, and groans, his eyes wide and afraid—

 

_Afraid, finally—_

 

“We’re going to do this efficiently,” says Hux, rising from the throne, clasping his hands behind his back. “Like the Empire of old. Your dominant hand is your right, Organa, is that correct?”

 

Organa makes a sound, bleating, animalistic, still fighting. One of the guards twists out his arm, pins it to the table, yanks up his sleeve. “Please,” he begs, tears already streaking down his pale, blanched cheeks. “Hux. Hux please, I’m sorry, I promise I won’t, I won’t steal anything from you, not ever again—”

 

“I know you won’t,” Hux replies. “I’m going to make sure of it.”

 

The physician readies the blade, steadying it against the soft skin of Organa’s wrist. Phasma looks slightly sickened, fixated on the twisting horror of Organa’s face. Dameron’s lips are moving silently, his eyes pressed shut, praying to gods that never answer.

 

And then the knife comes down.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's 3am so i'll pick through and find the mistakes i missed when i wake up at noon tomorrow lmao


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is almost 4000 words and it ate my soul 
> 
> enjoy!!!

  

The world has melted into nothing but blurred shapes and sounds: the violent red-orange glare of the sun, burning beneath the distant mountains, the brown-gray dust of the road, puffing up against the carriage windows. The driver’s whip cracks and the stallion’s high whinny rings in Ben’s ears like a scream. His throat is sore. Maybe he’s the one screaming.

 

Poe’s arms are fixed tight around him, pulling him up against his chest. “Hang on,” he says into Ben’s ear, his voice strained. “We’ll be home soon, it’ll be all right.”

 

Ben’s head lolls, dead weight against Poe’s shoulder; the world spins deliriously around him and there’s a pain in his right arm, breaking over him in slow-rolling waves. Red stains his clothes. Black clouds his vision. He must have fallen, he thinks. He must have slipped, and fallen, _just like your grandfather. Just like your grandfather._

 

The pain comes back, stabbing and scalding like a hot welding-iron in his mind, and when he gasps for breath he tastes copper, the raw flesh of his throat heaving up the tang of blood. “Make it go away,” he tries to say. The words go slack in his mouth. “It hurts. Poe.”

 

“I know, I know, I— need you to stay awake.” There are rough fingers on his cheek, Poe’s voice, “You hear me? I need you to do that, Ben—”

 

When he closes his eyes, the pain seems to numb. Poe’s arms feel steady and secure around him, and he doesn’t feel afraid, anymore. He had been so afraid, just a minute ago.

 

Why had he been so afraid?

 

“Ben,” he hears, the frantic cry of his name— that’s his name, he thinks. Hux calls him _Organa._ He wonders what _Ben_ would sound like in Hux’s mouth. The short, sharp syllable, in his cold, clipped accent.

 

“Don’t blame him,” Ben says, without knowing why; his voice cracks, and he feels a horrible burning behind his eyes, wet heat on his cheeks, he tastes salt. “Oh gods, don’t blame him, please, s’my fault—”

 

And it’s all a nightmare then, as he remembers. Fury, blazing in Hux’s eyes. Hux’s voice, _Like the Empire of old,_ the blade that had blurred, in the physician’s hand. The blood, pouring thickly onto the table spread out in front of him, dripping down over the stones beneath his feet, so much blood, _how could he have that much blood in him—_

 

Back in the carriage he slips away into an empty, pain-fogged darkness behind his eyelids. He is not aware of the time that passes them by and he does not remember when the dark, hazy morning light brightens into noon-day. He cannot recall passing through the border either, but when he comes to again there is cobblestone beneath him, and Poe has him braced under his arm, half-dragging him to the gates. Around them faces swim in and out of focus; murmurs of panic float like whispers past his ears.

 

“Poe?” comes Rey’s high, clear voice, frantic over the buzzing of the crowd, silk-brown hair and worried eyes, “ _Ben!”_

 

She’s at his side in an instant, slinging his maimed arm around her shoulder, helping Poe guide him up the palace steps. Ben tries to say her name. The word drips from his mouth slow, syrupy, her eyes are bright with tears, there is red on the cobblestone, red on Poe’s hands—

 

All at once Ben is so very tired. As if he hasn’t slept in years. The shouts of the palace guards above him fade to a lull. He wheels backwards into his mind again, losing himself as he is passed from Poe’s hands to Rey’s and then someone else’s; he catches faces sliding past him, the pale, drawn expression of his mother, the clouded fright in his father’s wide stare, his uncle’s grave shock, mingling with pity.

 

He forces his eyes open for a few moments longer, fighting to see them through the tears and blood and dirt.

 

Then his eyes roll back in his head, and he lets go.

 

 

…

 

 

The second time Ben asks the Emperor of Arkanis to marry him is in his dreams.

 

They’re on a vine-wrapped balcony of Alderaan’s palace gardens, a favorite hideaway of Ben’s. The Emperor is clad in that long, impeccably spotless white uniform that Ben has always found so ridiculous: such an obvious display of wealth, the heavy robe trimmed with fox fur and inlaid with crystal and diamond.

 

He remembers the hours he had spent masked in shadow, crouching in the rafters of Hux’s rooms. When Hux would send his attendants away, knowing— _feeling—_ that Ben was there. The times Hux had undressed himself, clumsy and unpracticed without the swift hands of those who served him, unclasping the robe and letting it fall away like a second skin, like a piece of him shed, only for Ben’s eyes.

 

“You always looked so much smaller without it,” Ben tells Hux, reaching out to adjust the rich fabric around his narrow shoulders—

 

With both hands, he realizes, startling. Two hands. He’s still whole.

 

“Of course you are,” replies Hux, and reminds him, “it’s a dream.”

 

“You’re not supposed to be able to read my mind,” Ben says. “Only I’m supposed to be able to do that.”

 

“It’s a dream,” Hux says again, crossly this time, and steps away from Ben to the edge of the balcony, leaning against the stone-carved banister.

 

Ben joins him there, close enough for their arms brush, and together they look out over the breeze-swept terrace together, the shadow-cast leaves stirring in the night air. The stars are bright, unclouded, and Ben is glad for it; he can see Hux’s face in the moonlight, the smooth, stone set of his brow. The way his eyes flicker towards Ben, and away again, when he sees Ben watching him.

 

“You caught me,” Ben says, and smiles. Here it all seems laughable, and unreal. Like a fairy tale, or someone else’s story— but not theirs.

 

“I was inspired,” says Hux. “You made me angry.”

 

“Yes, I’m good at that,” Ben agrees, nudging him with a teasing elbow. “You said you wouldn’t think about marrying me.”

 

“I didn’t.”

 

“You _did.”_ He taps Hux’s forehead with his forefinger. “Mind-reader, remember? I know you did.”

 

Hux scowls. “I didn’t invite you into my head.”

 

“You didn’t invite me into your palace, either,” says Ben. “I think you’ll find that I usually don’t do what I’m supposed to.”

 

“Including proposing to a man who would rather have you executed than have you in his bed?”

 

“I wish you would,” Ben says. “Have me in your bed, that is.” He rests his palm at the small of Hux’s back; if they were actually in Alderaan, if Hux was really next to him— he would push Ben away. In his dream, Hux presses into his touch, and Ben feels something tug and ache in his chest. “If I asked you again—”

 

“Organa,” says Hux, sighing, not _Ben,_ not even here. “No.”

 

“No?” echoes Ben, lifting his hand to take Hux’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, to turn his face toward him. “Are you sure?”

 

“Absolutely.” He shifts closer, his eyes on Ben’s mouth, and Ben slides his hands into Hux’s hair, the crown tilting under his fingers, lopsided over Hux’s forehead.

 

“Marry me,” says Ben.

 

“The throne is mine,” Hux answers, “Arkanis is _mine,”_ but even so he’s leaning toward Ben on the tips of his toes with his eyes half-lidded, and his head tilted back, and if they were actually in Alderaan, and if this were actually Hux—

 

But they aren’t, and it’s not.

 

So Ben kisses him, and pretends that the things that he wants the most are still within his grasp.

 

 

…

 

 

He wakes after an eternity, to the lull of his mother’s voice, and the gentle brush of fingers against his cheek.

 

“How is he,” he hears Leia asking, softly, almost a whisper. Her palm slides over his forehead, fingers cool and soothing as they comb through his hair. He keeps his eyes closed.

 

“He’s lost a lot of blood.” Poe’s voice, just as quiet as the Queen’s. “I was able to fashion a tourniquet from the clean set of clothes we’d brought for him, and that staunched the flow for a portion of the trip.”

 

“Why is he in restraints?”

 

“It was necessary, the first few days— he was feverish. Hallucinating. Luke wasn’t sure he’d— but he’s— he’s stable, now.”

 

Leia exhales slowly. Her hands are trembling, resting against Ben’s temples.

 

“He’ll need his—” Poe stumbles. “The wound. It needs to be cleaned, every few hours—”

 

“Yes,” Leia says, “I understand, thank you.” Ben stirs slightly, still feigning sleep; he wishes he were still dreaming. There’s no escape, now, from the grief he can feel radiating from his mother; but ever the Queen, her voice strengthens, even as Ben feels her iron-set backbone crumble. “I’m surprised the Emperor didn’t pursue you.”

 

There’s a lengthy silence that follows the statement. Ben hears Poe shift, his boots scraping the floor; Leia waits for his answer, her fingers stilling in Ben’s hair.

 

“He let us go,” Poe admits, finally, and something sick and cold coils in Ben’s gut. “He— wanted you to see. He said it’d remind you to keep your son in line. That it’d teach Ben not to— not to toy with him—”

 

 _Send him away,_ says Ben to Leia, frantically, biting down hard on his tongue to keep the pain back, behind his teeth. _Make him leave, tell him to go, please—_

 

“Poe.” She sweeps to her feet at once; her voice is gentle, but the dismissal is firm. There’s a quiet exchange that Ben doesn’t catch and doesn’t care to hear, anyway; he waits until he hears the echo of Poe’s footsteps fading into the hallway before he opens his eyes. Leia is still lingering at the doorway, shoulders stooped, rubbing absentmindedly at her forehead.

 

She looks older than Ben has ever seen her.

 

“Thank you,” Ben says. His voice comes out toneless, and raspy, from misuse. “I couldn’t— couldn’t stand it. Listening to that.”

 

She turns back toward his bedside, arranging herself on the edge of the infirmary mattress. “I knew you weren’t asleep,” she tells him, reaching out to touch his cheek. He leans into the touch, letting his eyes flicker shut again, just for a moment. “Rey sends her love. And your father has asked to see you.”

 

He shakes his head, words sticking in his throat.

 

“They’re worried about you.”

 

 _I don’t want to see them,_ he says, through mindspeak, then corrects himself, weakly, past it, _I don’t want them to see me._

 

His mother sighs, her eyes creasing at the corners. “Ben—”

 

He knows what she’s going to say before she says it. _It was my fault,_ he says, _it was my decision, to go. I underestimated him._

 

“I’m the one who let you leave,” Leia says. “I should have sensed what would happen, I should have stopped you.”

 

 _It was my fault,_ Ben repeats. Then, childishly, _I don’t want to talk about it._

 

Leia rubs at his shoulder, the repetitive motion of her touch soothing. “You’re still bound to the bed,” she says, at last. “I’m going to remove the restrains, all right?”

 

He pauses, biting at his lower lip, then nods. Leia squeezes his arm gently and gets to her feet, moving around the bed to where the bonds have been tied off.

 

“I’ve called for my advisors to meet with me today,” she says, fingers plucking at the knotted ends, loosening the ties holding him down. “If you’re feeling well enough, you could join us.”

 

“No,” says Ben. The restraints go slack, and he lies motionless as his mother pulls them gently from around his waist and forearms.

 

“You wouldn’t have to speak,” Leia assures him. “No one expects anything from you, Ben, you could simply observe.”

 

“No.” He hears his voice wobble as he shifts his weight, painfully aware of the strange, uneven absence. The remembrance of what should be there but isn’t, of what he’s missing, of what’s been taken from him. “I don’t want,” he begins, stammering, lightheaded, his breath coming short. “Don’t make me—”

 

Alarm blinks into Leia’s eyes. She drops the restraints and reaches for him, cradling his face in her hands. “Shh, shh, there—”

 

The blankets slip down over his forearm, and he sees it: the end of his wrist, the empty nothingness, past the bandages. His eyes clamp shut on instinct, as though seeing truly is believing, and if he closes his eyes he can forget the flash of the knife, its reflection glinting in Hux’s eyes, so clear and cold, _I’m going to make sure—_

 

 _I wish he had killed me,_ Ben realizes.

 

And only then does he come undone.

 

Leia gathers him close to her as he cries. She holds him up, holds him steady as he retches over the basin fetched from the foot of the bed, as he trembles against her shoulder, bile flooding his throat. “There,” she hushes, as choked-off whimpers crawl up into his mouth along with the vomit, and break in gasping sobs. “There, you’re all right, you’re safe now.”

 

 _He won’t touch you again._ She’s careful not to say it aloud but he hears it, all the same, her anger, boiling underneath. _I won’t let him anywhere near; he’ll never so much as look at you, if I can help it._

 

He’s exhausted, by the time his stomach has been emptied and his nerves soothed, somewhat. Leia wipes away the bile that’s dribbled down his chin, and calls for a servant to replace the soiled basin. She stays with him, as sleep begins to set in again, his eyelids drooping heavy.

 

“Promise me,” he mumbles, his mind addled by weariness and shock, fumbling drowsily for her right hand with his left. “Promise you won’t blame him.”

 

She links her fingers through his, and squeezes; he mistakes it for the answer he’d wanted to hear.

 

When he wakes again, his country is at war.

 

 

…

 

 

Leia tells Ben that he has nothing to do with it. She tells him the conflict was impending. She tells him Hux was pushing at their borders anyway. She says it isn’t revenge, or retribution— it’s politics.

 

She’s lying.

 

The decision was made the moment he had been pulled out of the carriage, his blood staining the palace stairs; the declaration was made with Ben half-out of his mind with pain and misery and medicine.

 

He cries and sobs and screams. He throws things, left-handed, bloodies up his bandages, _call it off, he was within his rights, it was my fault, it was my fault—_

 

His words do nothing. The hostilities carry on.

 

He does not leave the infirmary for a long time.

 

The laudanum Luke forces him to take softens his mind, and slurs his speech. The stuff is hidden in his food, stirred into his water. He would refuse it if he had the strength to.

 

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t fight Luke, he takes the anesthetic. He lets Poe visit, and lets Rey sit on the edge of his bed, and he listens to his father’s smuggling stories, the ones he’s heard a hundred times over. He lets his mother comb through his hair again and again as she tells him things he could care less about: the most recent gossip in Court, the new wolfhound of a duke. Pretending she hasn’t started a war in his name. Pretending Hux isn’t slaughtering her soldiers outside their palace walls.

 

Most days, he simply pulls the bedcovers over his head, and blocks out the world.

 

His dreams are strange and slippery, addled by the medicine. He closes his eyes hoping to find Hux in the blackness of his subconscious; he doesn’t, and feels sickened that he still wants to.

There are more pressing matters than dreams, in any case, with his _deficiency._ And the things that aren’t said haunt him, more so than the things he doesn’t dream. Poe, awkward and restless and laughing too loud: _gods, what do I say?_ Han, his gaze flickering helplessly down to the end of Ben’s sleeve: _wish he’d smile._ His mother, outrage trapped behind her eyes: _never should have let him go._

 

Rey.

 

 _What did you steal?_ she asks, wordlessly, clumsy. His cousin’s mindspeak isn’t as smooth as his; he and Luke had both been teaching her, before he had left for Arkanis. She’ll likely be next in line for the title of Thief, now that Ben is of no value. _Talk to me,_ she says, _tell me. Why would he do this to you, what did you take from him?_

_It’s what I failed to take._ _Not what I did._

 

_His power?_

_No—_

_His throne?_

Ben sits up, stomach turning over, and fumbles for his laudanum. _Forget it._

_His—_ And Rey startles, reading the answer in the unsteady shake of his left hand, the truth in the caverned sinkhole in his chest, _oh, Ben,_ she says, softer. _You wanted his heart?_

 

 _It was my mistake,_ Ben replies bitterly, tipping his head back to choke down the dose. _I’m not sure he has one._

 

 

…

 

 

After having gone so long without dreaming—

 

He’ll blame this one on the opiate.

 

They are not in Alderaan, this time. Hux is seated on his throne, a half-emptied wineglass in one hand, the other resting lazily on the gilded armrest. The hall is filled, guests paired neatly together in a waltz, sweet string music singing as they glide through the room in perfect practiced order, long skirts swishing, high boots gleaming. Ben is sure that Hux knows he is there, watching him from amidst the crowd. But the Emperor’s eyes are careful not to meet his.

_Look at me_ , thinks Ben, fiercely, projecting, maybe. _Fucking look at me, coward._

 

When Hux does it’s brief. It’s the quick glide of his eyes over Ben’s, a pulse-point pause. It’s entirely, bitterly cold, a knife-shard, ice and crystal, and it sends a shock through Ben’s heart.

 

Immediately he wants to open himself up to prove it. He imagines carving through his ribs. Finding the shrapnel, marked with Hux’s name. He thinks of plunging his hand through blood and flesh, slippery over the skin of his glove, and ripping it from his chest. He thinks of dragging himself to Hux’s feet. Offering it to him, saying, _look, see._

 

_You, this is you._

_Don’t you understand?_

_I came to Arkanis to give myself up._

_You caught me because I let you._

_Because I wanted you to._

_Didn’t you know?_

_Don’t you understand?_

 

 

…

 

 

By the end of two weeks, the raw, tender flesh at the end of his wrist begins to tighten, and heal over. Ben keeps it bandaged— even when the bandages are no longer necessary, he keeps it wrapped in cloth, and wears his sleeves long. He doesn’t like to look at it, he doesn’t like others staring. Better to hide it.

                                                                                                                                                                                                      

_Better to hide._

 

“I heard that,” comes Rey’s voice, sing-song, as she breezes through the door. “Get up. We’re not doing that routine today.”

 

Ben sighs, turning over, pressing his face into his pillow. “Rey. Please.”

 

She ignores him, pulling back the bedsheets. “Come on,” she says, too cheerfully. “We’re going to walk through the gardens, and it’s non-negotiable.”

 

His cousin has been dragging him out of bed every day, for menial things. Revisiting his favorite hidden spots within the palace, sneaking rolls out of the kitchens, the way they had when they were children. She’s even brought up an inkwell and quills, coaxing him into learning to write with his left hand. He hates her for it, a little, but more than that he knows he needs her, and hates that even more.

 

“You’ve been neglecting your training,” he tells her, as she leads him out toward the sun-spotted pavilion. “They’ll need you in the war, soon enough— you should stop coming by.”

 

“Oh, hush.” Rey links his left arm in hers, patting at his elbow. “I’m not the Thief the court wants. I’m not giving up hope on you, either.”

 

“I’m asking you to, Rey.”

 

They slow to a halt beneath the garden pavilion, and his cousin turns to give him a reproachful look, all too reminiscent of his mother. “Don’t be difficult, Ben. You’re not going to waste away while I’m here, I’m going to make sure of that.”

 

Before he can ask what she means—

 

He feels wary intuition prickle at the back of his neck, and turns just in time to see a wooden blade, slashing toward his neck.

 

A wordless shout cracks from his throat; he lurches away, vision going bright and tunnel-like as his reflexes kick in. The attacker stumbles, caught off guard as Ben hooks a defensive foot around their ankle, tightens the fingers of his left hand around their neck—

 

And slackens his grip, when he recognizes their face.

                                                                                                                                 

_“Poe?”_

 

Poe flashes him an easy smile, even with Ben’s fingers still at his throat. “Morning.”

 

Ben throws Poe back, whirls on Rey. “What the _fuck—”_

“You did good!” Rey says, clapping her hands together, her face lit up like a paper-lantern to flame. “See? You _can_ still fight—”

 

“I can avoid being clobbered from behind,” Ben accuses, knowing he sounds sullen, not quite managing to care. “You were supposed to be _my_ student!”

 

Rey wrinkles her nose. “Self-pity doesn’t suit you, you know.”

 

“None of this _suits_ me,” he snaps, raising his right arm to run a frustrated, phantom hand over his brow; when he catches the mistake he flushes, deep red, the humiliation choking. “What’s the _point_ of this— am I not allowed to be upset, you have to have Poe beat the shit out of me for being angry?”

 

Rey settles her hands on her hips, frowning. “Of course not, Ben! But I won’t let you wallow in what you feel, I want you to be yourself again—”

 

“I’m useless,” says Ben, sharply. “I wish you’d admit it.”

 

“That’s exactly why he did it!” Rey sounds angry too, now. “To make you think you're  _useless_ _—_ and you’re telling me you’re just going to let him? Stars, Ben! What else will you give up, before you demand something in return?”

_Not— demand, never—_ He shakes his head, a frustrated, conflicted sound issuing from somewhere deep in his chest.  _The only thing I want is something he’ll never let me have—_

“Since when have you ever asked permission?”

 

_I can’t steal what isn’t there for me to take!_

 

“Are you a Thief,” Rey asks, drawing a wooden sword from the sheath at her waist and tossing it to him, eyes flashing stubborn and stormy, “or not?”

 

On her command Poe swings at Ben again, without a warning, and his instincts unchain him a second time, his body moving almost on its own. He twists out of the path of the strike, upper body curving back to drive his blade up toward Poe’s chest; even with his clumsy left, the momentum of the thrust is bold, and true. Poe’s practice sword meets the center-edge of his own and they lock there, breath already coming fast.

 

“ _Yes,”_ says Rey. “That’s it, Ben. Again.”

 

He straightens. Paces back to regain his stance, feeling the awkward set of the sword in the wrong hand, the strange feeling of his diametrically mirrored counters.

 

 _You can do this,_ Rey tells him, as she leaves them to it. _This war was started in your name, Ben, and you can be the one to end it._

 

For the first time since his return, he believes her.

 


End file.
